The Girl In The Suit

Anne

"Anne. Yo, Anne. ANNE DENISE MARY O BRIEN!"

I lift up my head to look at Hayley. "What is it?"

"You look like you're away on another planet. Is everything alright?"

"Uh, yep. Everythings fine."

"Good. Now help with blowing these up."

I sigh and get off of the chair. We're at Tashas house, helping prepare the room for Gabrielle's party, and Caoimhe is the only one who went to school. I haven't stopped thinking about going to England with Gemma since she said it. Neither of us have brought it up. I don't want it to come up anyways. At least not until Freddie's out of-

Pop!

"Jesus, Annie!", exclaims Gemma. "My ears!"

And I've blown up the balloon so much it burst. Everyone has their hands over their ears. My chest starts feeling heavy. I struggle to breathe. And I run out the door.

I head into the bathroom and lock the door, trying to breathe. I hear the music turn off and footsteps approaching the door.

"Anne? You ok?" Its Gemma.

I can't get any words out, as I'm still trying to control my breath.

"Anne? It's just me."

She then manages to push in the door. She's unbelievably strong. Earlier today, she beat Tasha in arm wrestling in a second, and that's saying something.

She sighs and sits next to me on the bath.

"Hey." She lightly hugs me. "Its ok. It's just an anxiety attack. You're ok. You're with me. You're with the girls. You're safe."

I start to calm down a bit, and breathe again. I find comfort in her soft smile and touch. Shes a tough kid but a real softie in there.

"Thanks.", I say after a while. I smile slightly.

"No bother." She smiles and takes her hands off of me. "So, are you going to tell me what triggered that?"

I sigh. "I dont know how I feel about England. I wanna be with you but I also wanna be with Tasha and Anne and Hayley and Caoimhe and be here to see Kate get expelled from Pres. I also want you to be where you feel happy and safe."

"I do feel happy and safe here. The past few days with you, and the girls planning Gabrielle's 15th, and all the nights eating toast and drinking hot chocolate with you and Ali, its made me feel happy and safe, and I feel like I belong. I love school right now and I didn't know how I could enjoy myself without Freddie, but you guys are great. I'm staying here. That's for definite. You should've told me you were worried. I'm sorry." She hugs me.

I smile to myself and I feel so much better. I get to stay home and be with my British girlfriend. Well, British and Irish.

She separates and then kisses my cheek, and then moves to my lips. I smile as I kiss her back slowly. I really want to know how we've gone from enemies to girlfriends in a few weeks.

She moves away from my face and smiles at me. "Come on." She begins to pull me up. "Let's go back out to prepare for a party."

I keep smiling as I stand up. "OK."

We head back to the girls, who have a few balloons stuck up and are dancing to  I Wanna Dance With Somebody.  Its a beautiful sight. Tasha stops and comes over to us.

"Everything OK?", she asks.

"Everythings perfect.", I say smiling.

Gemma smiles over at me and we head on over to the others.